


Don't Sink

by botanistlester (Skeletonflowers)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phan Comfort, Phanfiction, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 02:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4245633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeletonflowers/pseuds/botanistlester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan thought he knew what love was. He thought the possessiveness, the name calling, and the rough-housing were normal. Phil is terrified for Dan and Dan is just an empty shell of what he used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Sink

Dan didn’t notice when he first started to deteriorate. It’s quite ironic, actually, how things can change gradually over time until they seem completely normal, taking over your past and making you into an entirely different person. You don’t even realize that it’s happening, that someone had taken ahold of your very own personality and locked it into a cage, restricting what you used to be until there is nothing left except for a shell of the past, a memory of what you could have been one day that is now in complete ruin. And that’s how it happened - slowly. Because Dan didn’t realize how toxic things will tear him down faster than he could scream for help. In fact, he didn’t even notice and he can’t decide what’s worse; noticing that you’re just an empty shell of depression, or waking up one day to realize that you would rather stop breathing than to have to live through another day.

It all started with a pair of brown eyes. And that’s all they were, really, but Dan knew he would love to wake up to them one day, that he would love to drown himself in everything that this boy was. Dan had never been in love before, and didn’t know what to expect, but he thought this was what love was supposed to be like, compared to all the shitty romance movies and novels that were written.

It was like drowning. He saw him one day and he couldn’t fucking breathe because there had never been a boy more gorgeous than he, with dark brown hair falling into identical chocolate eyes that made Dan think about the chocolates he ate when he travelled to Paris when he was fourteen, all gorgeous and desirable.

He remembered thinking that he wouldn’t mind if his heart got broken by this boy.

That, in theory, is absolute bullshit. No one deserves to go through what Dan did. He would have jumped off a cliff if it meant it would make the boy happy. If it meant that he could relive their very first kiss, the brown-haired boy laying on top of Dan and whispering, “What do you want for Christmas, Dan?”

And Dan, flustered by their close proximity, murmured, “You,” because he didn’t take into account that he wasn’t different from all the others, because he didn’t believe that this perfect entity in front of him would chew him up and spit him out just like all the other girls and boys who got the absolute pleasure of being with Eric Gainer.

And when Eric grinned, his teeth white and his breath hot against Dan’s skin, he thought he was going to faint until their lips touched and Dan was sure he was no longer alive.

It was perfect for a while. Dan was happy, happier than he’d ever been before. When Eric went home, he gathered his thoughts and burst through Phil’s door, taking the black haired man by surprise when he launched himself at his best friend, screaming that his crush had kissed him.

Phil had smiled, but there was a gesture under it that seemed a little forced. Dan, being the complete schoolgirl he was, didn’t notice when Phil’s voice shook as he asked for details, or the way his fingers quivered as he wrapped congratulatory arms around Dan’s waist.

Dan didn’t notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

And maybe, just maybe, Dan should have been worried when the boy with chocolate eyes gazed at him and told him he wanted to wait to tell his parents, that he wanted them to enjoy their relationship before getting Eric’s parents involved. Even though Dan had slipped it to Eric’s mother one day while Eric was in drum lessons, and his mum had looked over at Dan with worried eyes and said, “I really love you, Dan, but please don’t let him ruin you.”

Dan had laughed her off, then, and told her, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

One day, when they were passing notes to each other, Eric had quoted The Lover’s Dictionary to describe what he was feeling and how falling in love with someone could hurt in the end. “‘The proper verb for depression is sink,’” he whispered into Dan’s hair, smoothing out his messy curls as they drifted to sleep at one in the morning, “Don’t sink.”

Phil was worried, Dan could tell. He could see oceans in his eyes and a million lonely stars when Dan recalled how the boy he had fallen in love with had another girl trying to get with him. “I’m just saying, Dan,” Phil whimpered, trying his hardest to get Dan to listen for once, to see how bad this relationship was. “I saw them holding hands. I know he said it was just to get someone to stop flirting with her, but it just doesn’t feel right. I love you but I’m scared.”

Dan didn’t talk to Phil for a week.

He didn’t even notice when it started happening. Little things came first, like Eric not wanting to hold hands in the hall. He always said he just wasn’t a big fan of PDA, but why had it changed so suddenly? Dan really didn’t mind though, after a while. Not when they went back to Dan’s house and made out lazily for a while and fucked around until the night ended with Eric whispering secrets about his past into Dan’s ear. He would cry sometimes and Dan would hold him closer, feeling his heart swell because Eric trusted him enough to tell him about how his dad was an alcoholic who duct taped his hands behind his back for the whole day because he wouldn’t stop sucking his thumb when he was four years old, or how his mum told him that he wasn’t depressed. Or maybe how he actually didn’t have any feelings, no feelings of regret or remorse, or even any strong feelings of love.

“But I love you,” he added afterwards. “I don’t deserve you.” And maybe Dan should have run away when he mentioned how he wouldn’t regret killing someone if they did something so bad that it was worthy of death. But Dan didn’t run and he convinced himself that he would heal Eric.

He whispered these thoughts to Phil at the early hours of the morning, and Phil looked sad, but he stayed silent. Maybe he didn’t want to risk ruining their friendship anymore.

It started out with playful fighting at first, just wrestling and giggling while Eric pinned Dan down, claiming he won. Dan didn’t mind at first. But then it started getting rougher, and somehow hands would end up wrapped around Dan’s neck and he couldn’t breathe and he would cry, and Eric would let go and apologize because he was just playing around. Dan would forgive him and the cycle would repeat, but Dan didn’t try to stop it.

“Do I scare you?” Eric asked on a winter day. He was flicking around his butterfly knife that he stole from his brother, looking at Dan through thick eyelashes.

“No,” Dan answered immediately, but it didn’t hide the fact that he was trembling.

Something came over Eric’s face then, and he pounced on Dan, cold metal sliding over the skin of his neck, pricking slightly. “How about now?”

“No. You wouldn’t hurt me.”

Chocolate eyes burned into Dan’s and he was quivering, but he tried not to show it. “I could kill you.”

Dan shook his head, wincing at the way the blade cut at his skin. “I would let you.”

The grip on the knife tightened slightly and Dan stared levelly back until he was released, reaching up to rub at the small cut on his neck. “You’re fucking crazy,” Eric muttered, and Dan believed him.

By now, Dan hadn’t talked to Phil for nearly a month. In fact, he barely talked to anyone anymore besides the boy who had his utmost adoration.

Dan tried not to let the pictures on Eric’s phone stab him in the heart. But the fact was that they replaced his own, the background of Eric’s phone now replaced with a pretty girl he knew by the name of as Reaghan.

“She’s just a friend,” Eric said, and Dan tried to believe him, but then he saw the messages. Calling her sweetheart, darling. Telling her he liked her, that he had feelings for her.

Dan threw the phone at Eric and broke down completely while Eric began crying as well, his eyes dark as he held onto Dan’s clammy hands and asked, “Did I shoot you?”

“What?” Dan sobbed, his heart hurting more than it ever had before. If this is what love felt like, then fuck love. He didn’t want it anymore

“‘My love for you was bulletproof but you’re the one who shot me,’” Eric quoted from a Pierce the Veil song, making Dan cackle humorlessly.

“Yeah,” Dan answered and he couldn’t fathom anymore words.

They stayed friends after that. Eric still came over and they still fucked, Eric’s hand over Dan’s mouth to keep him quiet. To keep this quiet. And then the next day, Eric would invite a girl over to Dan’s house and tell Dan that he liked this girl and that he wanted Dan to help make it less awkward by being there and helping Eric out.

And he did, watching as they giggled nervously together before retreating to the bathroom to cry alone, memories of when Eric used to look at him like that floating through his mind.

It didn’t start getting bad until around August, when they were sort of dating except the fact that Eric was still chatting girls up while secretly fucking Dan on the side, despite the fact that he wouldn’t let Dan chat anyone up. Dan did it to keep him because he was in love with him and he didn’t know what else to do. That’s what you do when you love someone, right? By then, Dan hadn’t seen Phil for three and a half months except in school, when Phil would avoid him in the halls. Dan hardly noticed.

It was when Dan had gotten a bit too drunk and slept with someone named Keven that things got really bad.

“Tell me right now,” Eric hissed, grabbing Dan’s wrist and yanking him so that he whimpered in pain while still staring into angry eyes. “Did you sleep with someone else?”

“No!” Dan lied, tears stinging in his eyes. Lies, lies, lies.

“I swear to God, Dan. You better tell me right now and tell me the truth. If you tell me then I’ll forgive you and take you back.” He took a deep breath and his eyes were black and Dan was so fucking scared. “Did. You. Fuck. Someone. Else?”

Tears flowed down Dan’s face and he nodded, hiccupping and hiding his face in his hands, ashamed. Ashamed because he was Eric’s. Because now he was unclean and Eric wouldn’t want him anymore. He was tainted.

Eric burst into tears, burying his face in his knees. He looked pathetic but it made Dan cry harder because he disappointed Eric so badly. “I’ll rip his fucking hands off where he touched you,” Eric snarled between sobs. “You’re mine. Mine. No one else’s. Ill fucking kill him.”

“Eric-” Dan whimpered, reaching out his hand to touch Eric’s shoulder.

The boy only ripped his shoulder away, glaring angrily at him. “I wish you were dead,” He hissed and Dan flinched away like he’d been struck by lightning. “Sometimes i wish you just went through with killing yourself.”

Dan’s mouth went dry along with his eyes. He felt numb. His stomach wadded into a ball and his whole body was tingling. He was numb when he stood up, lips pressed in a firm line. “You wish I was dead?” He whispered, hurt filling his voice.

“Yes,” Eric cried, watching him through large tears. Watching as he strode over to his desk and lifted up his lamp, revealing the pencil sharpener blade he’d hidden under there from five months ago, when he was contemplating death.

Dan met Eric’s eyes, chocolate meeting chocolate, and without another word, drew the blade across his skin with three quick swipes. He felt blood begin to pour down his arm, dripping onto the carpet, but he didn’t care, glowering at Eric as he gaped at him, eyes wide. “I wish I was fucking dead,” Dan snapped and watched as Eric whimpered his name before sauntering over to him, grabbing a blanket from Dan’s floor and pressing it against the cuts with enough pressure to staunch the bleeding.

“Don’t tell your mum,” Eric said.

That night, Dan snuck out of the house and made his way over to a familiar one on the other side of the neighborhood, knocking lightly on the window hard enough to gain the attention from the person inside.

Phil opened the window to find Dan, his eyes swollen and red, lip trembling and arm bandaged with thick gauze, and Dan watched as Phil’s face turned to one of shock and then to sorrow. “Come on,” Phil murmured, wrapping his arms under Dan’s to help hoist him into the room.

Dan fell into him, gasping into his chest and feeling more at home than he had in nine months, since this whole thing with Eric had started. “I want to disappear, Phil,” Dan sobbed into Phil’s neck, trying to focus on the calm heartbeat of his best friend and how it was so relaxing to finally be in his arms again. “I’m so sad. I’m so sad. I can’t do this. I can’t breathe anymore.”

Phil didn’t say anything for fear that he would upset the boy further, but he whispered about how much he loved Dan and how he was so, so proud, and they fell asleep entangled together and Phil always made Dan feel at ease when things were going wrong.

It was when Eric began dating one of Dan’s close friends, Shane, when Dan snapped. “How could you?” He cried to Shane, who glowered at him.

“It’s your fault,” Shane answered and Dan gaped at him. “If you hadn’t been such a little bitch, then he would still be with you.”

“But- he loves me!”

“No. He doesn’t. You’re just a quick fuck. He made love to me. He never loved you.”

Dan’s heart shattered in his chest and he started screaming, something so out of character for him that it was almost shocking. When he was done, Shane just looked at him with narrowed green eyes and said, “Eric was right. You deserve to fucking die.”

Dan overdosed on a bottle of pills that day. His mum took him to emergency and Phil was right beside him, holding his hand while he wished death upon himself, telling himself that everyone was right and that he did not deserve to be there.

His mum stared down at him with sad eyes that everyone seemed to be adorning now. “I’m getting a restraining order,” She told him and Dan cried in the hospital bed, sobbing about how she couldn’t do that to him and how Eric was a good person.

He didn’t know if he even believed that himself.

It took Dan nearly two months after getting a restraining order to realize that there was, in fact, something wrong with him. To realize that he did not smile as equally as he did a year ago, that he tried drowning himself in cigars and alcohol and too much food to be considered even remotely healthy.

“I just feel weird,” Dan muttered to Phil when it was late during the spring and a warm breeze blew his hair out if his face from where they sat atop Dan’s roof, watching the nearly-translucent stars. Out of the corner of his, he saw Phil glance at him, lip captured between white teeth. “I fucking miss him. I feel like a part of me is missing. I’ve- I’ve dated other people since then but I don’t feel a god damned thing. I don’t even feel sorry when I break up with then. I’m just numb.” Dan leaned into Phil’s shoulder, closing his eyes at the feeling of Phil’s arm snaking around his waist in an embrace that Dan only found comfort in because it was his best friend. “Is this what Eric meant when he said he didn’t feel anything?”

Phil brought his arms around Dan’s waist, tugging until Dan was sat pressed to Phil’s chest. He sank into the embrace, basking in the warmth as Phil buried his face into Dan’s brown hair. “It’ll get better, bear,” Phil murmured into his skin. “Losing someone you love messes you up for a while, but I’ll be here for you every step of the way. I love you, Dan, and we will get through this together.” He entangled their fingers together while Dan let out a long exhale, leaning his head into Phil’s touch.

“Why couldn’t I fall in love with someone like you?” Dan muttered off-handedly. Phil stiffened slightly, but Dan didn’t notice. Or maybe he just didn’t want to notice.

Either way, Phil wrapped his arms around Dan again and rested his face in Dan’s neck, pressing a kiss to Dan’s shoulder, otherwise completely silent.

Dan didn’t know if he was silent because he was afraid to break Dan even more.

The next time Dan saw Eric, he wasnt prepared. It was the night of the school’s prom and Phil was pressed to Dan’s side like a magnet, and Dan was calm because Phil was sort of like his security.

“Are you having fun?” Phil asked, a smile graced upon his lips, eyes twinkling under the fairy lights littering the room. The sound of chattering was far away to Dan and he never realized how fucking beautiful Phil was. But then he realized that this was his best friend of nine years and of course Phil was gorgeous, but acquiring feelings for his best friend would only cause problems.

“Yeah,” Dan answered quietly, smiling at Phil. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“I’d do anything for you. You know that.”

There was a warm feeling in Dan’s stomach that made him sigh happily. But then that happy sigh turned into a whimper as he saw a familiar head of brown hair. “Why the fuck is he here?” Dan hissed, clutching onto Phil’s arm for comfort.

Phil stiffened and wrapped his arm around Dan protectively, and Dan tried to relax into him but he couldn’t breathe when those dark eyes were boring into his, and Dan should be over him by now because it’s been three months since he last talked to him and yet Dan is still drowning.

It’s as if every single emotion he’s been trying to repress has returned tenfold.

“Let’s get out of here, I can’t breathe,” Dan muttered, grabbing Phil’s hand and entwining their fingers. Out of the corner if his eye, Eric sneered at their clasped hands and Dan tried to focus on the warmth of Phil’s hand in his, the way it made him feel safe.

Once Dan couldn’t see the brunette anymore, he stopped and pulled Phil into a tight hug. “Just hug me forever please,” Dan groaned into his chest, the raspberry smell of his best friend calming his nerves. “Hide me from the world.”

Phil chuckled and kissed the top of his head. “Gladly.”

It was nearly a year later when Dan saw Eric and didn’t feel a god damn thing. The hurt that was present beforehand was gone. That wasn’t to say he didn’t have any emotions of sadness towards him and their memories, but it wasn’t the crippling emptiness anymore and he could smile and laugh with ease.

He had Phil to thank for that, really. When Dan had pushed him away, Phil gave him space. When Dan needed him, he was there to hold him and let him rant about whatever was on his mind.

Dan was eighteen, nearly two years since he had fallen in love with the devil, and he was starting to be alright again.

Dan was beginning to remember the way he was before; his personality, the way he laughed, how he treated people as if they could do no harm. For a while, he believed there was no hope for him, that he would be stuck in this black abyss for the rest of his life.

And then there was a hand, pale and gentle, that reached through the darkness and pulled him out little by little, and Dan was finally seeing streams of light in the black world. But along with the luminescence brought other feelings, ones that had been shoved deep into Dan’s unconscious mind that were slowly emerging one-by-one.

He noticed them when Phil’s finger rubbed against the skin on Dan’s hand, when Dan breathed in the scent of raspberries as Phil buried his face into his hair, when Phil’s tongue poked between his teeth as he laughed. It started as a warm feeling in the pit of Dan’s stomach, then began to spread to Dan’s chest and cheeks like a raging fire that was indescribably familiar.

It was when they had just challenged each other to Mario Kart, Phil flinging himself into Dan’s lap when he lost, blue eyes wide and pouty and holding so much life that Dan sort of went, “Oh.”

Because he was in love with his best friend.

“I love you, Phil,” Dan blurted, watching as Phil’s eyes widened for a split second before he smiled.

“I love you too, bear.”

“No,” Dan interrupted, heart pounding, face burning. He suddenly regretted saying anything in the first place and did his best to avoid looking right at him. “I’m in love with you. Like, properly.”

Phil’s jaw went slack and his cheeks became a beautiful dusty pink colour. Dan saw little droplets of water form in those ocean eyes, and he was so beautiful that Dan nearly lost his breath. “I- Oh my God, Dan,” Phil whimpered somewhat pathetically, moving himself to drape over Dan in a tight embrace. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that for six fucking years.”

Dan chuckled and brought his fingers under Phil’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. “You’ve been here for me through everything, even when I treated you like shit. You’re the reason I’m okay today, the reason I can wake up in the morning. I love you so much, Phil, and I’m never letting you go again. You are my perfection.”

Phil was properly crying now, crystalline tears running down pale cheeks despite the huge grin etched on his face. He leaned forward and nudged their noses together, making Dan giggle and brush his fingertips over his best friend’s cheekbone.

“Fuck me up, Phil Lester,” Dan whispered, and Phil snorted, rolling his eyes before lunging himself at Dan and pressing their lips together almost desperately. Phil let out a whimper and Dan clutched him closer, fire combusting throughout his body as his right hand tangled into onyx hair and his left squeezed Phil’s hip.

So maybe the first time Dan had fallen in love wasn’t real love, and the second time was, but it wasn’t happy love. But now, its true requited love and Dan wouldn’t change a damn thing.

Two years later, Dan didn’t even notice when a certain brown-haired stranger passed by him in the street because he had a perfect man beside him with blue eyes and black hair that made fire ignite in his bones. Dan didn’t allow himself to sink. He made it.

**Author's Note:**

> This one was based on a true story, and used some real quotes and crap! I hope you liked it!


End file.
